Of course nobody kept any engagement. Sir Guy Vol-au-Vent (and none but a most abandoned desperado or advanced thinker would be willing to do such a thing on Christmas) had accepted an invitation to an ambush at three for the slaying of Sir Percy de Résistance. But the ambush was put off till a more convenient day. Sir Thomas de Brie had been going to spend his Christmas at a cock-fight in the Count de Gorgonzola’s barn. But he remarked to his man Edward, who brought the trap to the door, that the Count de Gorgonzola might go —— Never mind what he remarked. It was not nice; though oddly enough it was exactly the same remark that the Count had made about Sir Thomas on telling his own man James to drive to Wantley and drop the cock-fight. All these gentlemen, as soon as they heard the great news, started for the Manor with the utmost speed.
Nor was it the quality alone who were so unanimous in their feelings. The Tenantry (to whom Sir Godfrey had extended a very hospitable bidding to come and they should find standing-room and good meat and beer in the court-yard) went nearly mad. From every quarter of the horizon they came plunging and ploughing along. The sun blazed down out of a sky whence a universal radiance seemed to beat upon the blinding white. Could you have mounted up bird-fashion over the country, you would have seen the Manor like the centre of some great wheel, with narrow tracks pointing in to it from the invisible rim of a circle, paths wide and narrow, converging at the gate, trodden across the new snow from anywhere and everywhere; and moving along these like ants, all the inhabitants for miles around. And through the wide splendour of winter no wind blowing, but the sound of chiming bells far and near, clear frozen drops of music in the brittle air.
Old Gaffer Piers, the ploughman, stumped along, “pretty well for eighty, thanky,” as he somewhat snappishly answered to the neighbours who out-walked him on the road. They would get there first.
“Wonderful old man,” they said as they went on their way, and quickly resumed their speculations upon the Dragon’s capture. Farmer John Stiles came driving his ox-team and snuffling, for it was pretty cold, and his handkerchief at home. Upon his wagon on every part, like swallows, hung as many of his relations as could get on. His mother, who had been Lucy Baker, and grandmother Cecilia Kempe, and a litter of cousin Thorpes. But his step-father Lewis Gay and the children of the half-blood were not asked to ride; farmer Stiles had bitterly resented the second marriage. This family knew all the particulars concerning the Dragon, for they had them from the cook’s second cousin who was courting Bridget Stiles. They knew how Saint George had waked Father Anselm up and put him on a white horse, and how the Abbot had thus been able to catch the Dragon by his tail in the air just as he was flying away with Miss Elaine, and how at that the white horse had turned into a young man who had been bewitched by the Dragon, and was going to marry Miss Elaine immediately.
On the front steps, shaking hands with each person who came, was Sir Godfrey. He had dressed himself excellently for the occasion; something between a heavy father and an old beau, with a beautiful part down the back of his head where the hair was. Geoffrey stood beside him.
“My son-in-law that’s to be,” Sir Godfrey would say. And the gentry welcomed the young man, while the tenants bobbed him respectful salutations.
“You’re one of us. Glad to know you,” said Sir Thomas de Brie, surveying the lad with approval.
Lady Jumping Jack held his hand for a vanishing moment you could hardly make sure of. “I had made up my mind to hate you for robbing me of my dearest girl,” she said, smiling gayly, and fixing him with her odd-looking eyes. “But I see we’re to be friends.” Then she murmured a choice nothing to the Baron, who snarled politely.
“Don’t let her play you,” said he to Geoffrey when the lady had moved on. And he tapped the youth’s shoulder familiarly.